


payment in kin(d)

by Anonymous



Category: Vinland Saga (Anime), Vinland Saga (Manga)
Genre: Brother/Brother Incest, First Time Together, M/M, Not with each other, Sibling Incest, mentions of past rape/non-con, sex as payment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:01:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22885192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Atli settles(?) a debt.
Relationships: Atli/Torgrim (Vinland Saga)
Kudos: 2
Collections: Anonymous





	payment in kin(d)

Traders come to the village in the warmer months, usually, and some of their more practical wares filter through to the raiders courtesy of a few enterprising souls who buy and store them in hopes of turning a profit. The kind of stuff they're sure can't be looted on the battlefield. It's midwinter and Torgrim's chewing his lip over a set of throwing axes when the fur catches Atli's eye. He's going to become pretty well acquainted with it in the years to come, but at the moment it's new.

Atli and Grani are going through a whispered but animated argument, and the axes aren't interesting enough to hold Torgrim's attention, so he listens to them with half an ear.

"Cut that in half," Atli says. "Come on, you've known me your whole life."

"And you never buy shit from me." Grani doesn't like haggling. Torgrim could've told his brother that. He expects near-full price for everything he takes the time to store for you, and if you work him down to less, he doesn't forget it in a hurry. It's the reason he's not a real merchant, just a farmer who holds onto a few things in his storeroom and passes them along to the raiders when he can.

Of course, he also holds it against everyone when he doesn't sell anything and has to eat the amount he sank into buying the stuff, so it's lucky for him he's got good taste. The fur's a real nice one, no rips or bloodstains the way you're likely to get from a looted one, and big. Torgrim might've grabbed it, if he could stand having fur scratching around his ears all the time. Atli doesn't mind that, though—he had an old scrap of rabbit or something when he was little that he used to sleep with, until it wore out. Their parents wouldn't let him have another one. All the other fur had to be made use of, and things never worked out so there was a useless scrap sitting around. 

They've got the money for it now that they're grown, though. Torgrim grins a little as he thinks about Atli trying to replace the rabbit fur with this huge pelt sitting in front of him. It might suffocate the both of them if he's not careful.

Besides the issue of Grani not knowing the basics of haggling, there's Atli's problem of not knowing how to manage his damned money. He's always expecting more of it to come rolling in somehow, and it drives Torgrim crazy watching him blow through half his share in a month and then have to ration the rest out over the whole winter. They eat and sleep free, at least, but people are always making extra treats and nice things to wear, and when you're a mercenary, all you've got to trade is hard cash. You can't run a tab, either, the way a farmer might promise his neighbor wool when his lambs are grown, or fruit preserved in that special way his wife does it. Because there's always the chance you won't be on the raiders' ships the next time they come sailing home.

"Your whole _life_ , you've known me," Atli says, trying a slightly different tack. He does sound hurt, but not as much as he probably thinks. He's no good at faking, and Grani's not the man to try it on in the first place.

"I'll cover it," Torgrim says, stepping in to keep Atli from embarrassing himself too badly. The axes are too fancy for something you'll have to run around picking up after a fight.

Atli turns to him, surprised. "Cover it?"

"I'll make the difference up. You want it, don't you?" Besides which, he can't stand the thought of his brother making sad puppy dog eyes for months, every time he sees a man looking warmer than he feels. When it's his own fault for not knowing how to save a little, for fuck's same.

"Sure," Atli says. "I've got my own money, though. You don't have to..."

Torgrim drops a handful of coins right into Grani's hand. "You'll be paying me back, don't worry about that."

"I wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth," Grani tells Atli as he hands over the fur, one-handed so he doesn't have to let go of the coins.

"Make it last," Torgrim tells him, slinging an arm over his shoulders. "You're not getting anything else out of me this year."

"Thanks," Atli says, holding the scarf a little uncomfortably, not sure what to do with it.

The word hangs awkward in the air. They don't use it much. Everything they do for each other is simple habit at this point. Torgrim lifts one end of a crate of food, Atli's already at the other end keeping it level. Atli's boots start to give him blisters, Torgrim's nudging him towards a corpse about the right foot size before he even starts to complain.

"S'nothing," says Torgrim. "You'll make it up soon enough."

He doesn't think, then, that it'll mean anything much in the long run.

* * *

It's been a few days now, on the march. Mid-spring and not as muddy as it was a few weeks ago with the snow melting. Atli still wearing his fur, for reasons Torgrim hasn't asked. It doesn't look quite as batshit when the sun's down and it gets cooler, but it's early evening yet and he's still got it on. You can see the sweat on the back of his neck when he bends over.

"Because he's out of his fucking skull, that's why," Torgrim tells the others as they're lighting one of the fires. "How should I know?"

It is annoying, not knowing—not being able to tell. It puts him in a bad temper with the rest of the band ("Just figured you'd be out of your skull in all the same ways"—pricks) and he drifts away from them as the tents go up and the fires begin to stand out against the dusk. When he looks around, he's sitting with his brother. Where he always ends up unless he's making a special effort.

Atli's not saying much. He's been like this the past few days, and the others have pointed that out, too. But it's not him being annoying, really. It's everyone else. What's it to them, if someone wants some space for once, so long as he doesn't skip his work? By the time Atli does speak, Torgrim's firmly back on his side, and what he says doesn't, at first, seem like any cause for concern.

"We need to fuck."

"Great idea," Torgrim says, looking into the fire morosely. "Easier said than done." It was a mistake, focusing too much on the shinier loot last time they hit up a village. All he got was a sore shoulder from carrying too much at once, and all the women spoken for by the time that was done. The shoulder's better by now, but at least that was a distraction while it was still hurting. 

The itch left behind is a hard one to scratch. Once you're on the march in a foreign country, it's usually too late. You can't exactly pop into a village to check for whores without alerting the whole lot of them to a stranger who can't speak the language. And poor as they are, that news spreads through the countryside fast. It's why the band have to be so careful about the edges of the village when they eliminate one. He could pretend to be mute, maybe, but it seems like a lot of trouble. And some of the men—the ones who make kind of a study of whores—say they can tell anyway, from how clean Norsemen are compared to the usual fare.

"Us, I mean."

"Well, yeah, hopefully. Is that what's had you so quiet?" Torgrim takes a bite of his drumstick and sees the way his brother's looking at him and chokes.

"The two of us," Atli says, when he's done pounding Torgrim's back. "No women. Are you getting it yet?"

"I'm getting it." Torgrim pulls away, casting about the clearing for anyone else to come over and interrupt. Nobody's looking at them. He can't call out, not to be saved from his own brother, so he looks back at Atli, and sees him looking just as serious. "Look, you're drunk. Go to sleep early or something, we'll forget this happened."

"I'm not drunk." He shakes his drinking horn and a little bit sloshes out. It's nearly full. "I've just been thinking."

"Even worse. What the hell have you been thinking about to get you there? To us..." Torgrim spins his hand desperately in the air, trying to at least get the word out but failing. How's he supposed to deal with this if he can't even do that?

"It's this." Atli wipes his fingers on a trouser leg and tugs at the pelt around his neck. For a second it looks like he's about to pull it off and reveal something—a deadly wound, a second head. Whatever's putting these ideas in him.

"Your scarf? Your scarf's telling you we need to commit incest?"

"I can't get you paid back," Atli says, starting to get snappy. "You're always pulling back ahead. We said I'd find a way, right?"

Fuck's sake, he'd nearly forgotten about that. "You're taking it too serious. I didn't mean for you to be going round with it hanging over your head."

"What else can I possibly get you, that you want and can't get yourself? Well, I did just save your life, but..."

Torgrim's pride flares up before he can say, _That's right, so we're even._ "Like hell you did. I'm not about to choke to death on a mouthful of chicken."

"You see? What other choice do I have?" Atli nudges his knee. With his own knee, which is a new level of unsettling. He must've done it before in their lives, but now it feels...

Shit. Torgrim wishes he could be anywhere else right now. "Just toss it out, then. Cancel the debt. We'll forget all about it."

"If I chuck it, you've wasted your money on me. I'll owe you even more. Besides." He fluffs the fur again. "I like it. Might as well be inside by the fire, when I'm wearing this. That's why I have to pay you back properly."

"You're talking crazy. This isn't an option."

"I know what you sound like with a woman," Atli says patiently. "And what you look like, and smell like. So I'll find out what you feel like, and that's my scarf paid for in full."

"I mean," Torgrim says. "If we could do that, we'd've done it a long time ago, wouldn't we?" If you could have all that in your own family, nobody would ever leave their house.

Hell, if he had a woman who could keep him company like Atli does, and take his cock too—well, he'd never bother with anyone else in the world.

"Yeah, well. I've been thinking. If we did our work back home in Denmark, they'd call it lots of things, wouldn't they? Murder, theft, rape. But out here—" he shrugs, taking in the whole clearing— "there's no one to complain, right? So if I pay you back, and nobody knows..."

"I'd know. I don't want you... prostituting yourself over me. And _to_ me—Atli, none of this makes any sense. Have a drink. You've been thinking too much, it's got you all mixed up."

"I'm not some hanger-on you toss your scraps to." Atli flips his drinking horn and the ale gushes down to the dirt like blood from a calf's cut throat. "We keep things even, and I like it that way. I can give you something that gets us back there. It's simple."

"Save your money up for once in your life," Torgrim pleads, knowing they won't be making as much this year. He doesn't even remember how much he dropped in the trader's hand. "You're acting like we have to do this, but there's so much else you could do."

"I can get this done in ten minutes. How much money could I earn for ten minutes' work?"

Ten minutes is selling the both of them a little short. That's not the issue here, though, so Torgrim squashes the thought. "There's no law against working. There are laws against getting fucked by your brother."

"There's a lot of laws." Without turning to look, he points with his thumb into the woods behind them. "I'm not asking you to do it right here. We wouldn't be bothering anybody."

Torgrim's silent. Too many thoughts to deal with at once. That all this stuff Atli's saying makes a scary amount of sense, if you put aside the fact that they're brothers. That they _are_ brothers, and it takes work, serious work, to put that fact aside. That it's not even scarf weather here, anymore. And one that he really, really wishes hadn't been put into his head. By what outside power he can't begin to imagine.

It's been a while since he fucked in private.

"I'm not gonna force you," Atli says, more softly. "You can think it over. I had to."

"Fuck, no, don't make me _think_ about this." Torgrim takes one last pull on his own drinking horn. If this can take root in Atli's head, it can take root in his. Best to do it and forget about it before the idea gets really stuck. Before it starts to make sense. "Let's get it over with."

He can see the smirk Atli's not showing as they move together into the woods. But he keeps quiet about it. Starting a fight would just draw attention, at the worst possible time—nobody's watching them now. They do this often enough when they're busy talking and one of them has to take a piss.

They go deep into the woods. Deeper than you have to when you piss, deeper even than when you take a shit. Finally Atli motions to a log that looks about right for sitting purposes.

"I'll just blow you. No laws about that."

Torgrim grunts, as noncommittal as he can manage. He's outnumbered, when his little brother can use these words against him. Get him flustered with no way of fighting back.

It's Atli's fault in the first place, come to think of it, that he only gets laid with an audience lately. This is just taking the girl out of the scene and leaving Torgrim alone with the problem. But it's been so long, and he's at such a low point that it's actually doing something for him. His brother, talking about giving him a blowjob.

They have to get this finished as soon as possible. Keep the wanting from taking hold. He sits down quick, without answering back, and unlaces his trousers without looking up, trying to get the front part down without having to sit bare-arsed on the log. They're not in a clearing, really, just a small space with enough room for someone to lie down in front. Brown leaves layered across the forest floor, just starting to dry all the way through now that the winter snows have melted away. No paths worn away here by man or beast.

The beasts must fuck here sometimes, at least. On this very spot, more likely than not. Some of them have to be related too. They don't care about any of that shit. Or maybe they care a lot, but can't tell each other apart. Torgrim's never heard of a deer getting a blowjob, from buck or doe, but maybe they don't care about that, either. One animal's face and legs are as furry as the next. If you're not in rut, why be picky?

But then again, there's the antlers to think about. No, a buck would have to prefer a doe's mouth. Unless he knows how to roll over on his back.

"You're thinking too much," Atli says, his voice cutting in soft but insistent. "We're finishing a trade. Don't spook yourself out of it."

Torgrim starts back from the hand on his knee. "Finish what you're about before I change my mind," he says, and pulls his cock out. The air feels cool against it, hardly like the early spring weather it really is. It's no bigger than Atli's—no showing him up there. That's the one place they've always looked the same. Used to be twins, until the hair started growing in different shades of blond.

"I'm not going to bite, you know."

"Shut it." It's impossible to be gruff enough that Atli can't tell when he's feeling, not overwhelmed, but... jumpy, a little off his game. And who wouldn't be, if they were sitting here in his place. In just the same way, Torgrim can tell without even meeting Atli's eyes how fucking _amused_ he is. "Quit stalling and get to work."

He's gentle about it, and that's the thing that fucks them both over completely. He feels it up in his hand, resting the balls in his palm like a virgin who's never seen a cock before. Getting the lay of the land, so to speak. And it goes all the way up. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does, rising into view past his gut. And then before Torgrim can stop digging his fingers into the bark on either side of him, his brother goes down. 

It's as soft as a woman's mouth. That's the first thing Torgrim realizes. More careful, though, the teeth brushing kind of delicately against him as he slides in. Like his first time back home, with a girl who didn't know how to go about things any more than he did. One of the few times he and Atli weren't together. He explained the whole thing to him later, though, leaving out all the fumbling and false starts. Making sure Atli wouldn't embarrass himself when his own turn came. For the first time Torgrim wonders if big brothers are supposed to go quite that far, and if they're supposed to get a full report back, in turn, when their little brothers have their first girl.

But a man's got to make sure his brother's going through life right. What's the point in painful trial and error if it doesn't take a little weight off Atli's shoulders?

The next thing he takes in is how much slower it is. That's down to him, partly. He's not quite sure what to do when he's sitting like this. He'd have it rammed further down by now, usually. But he can't do that to Atli, even if he were standing up, so he's just sitting. Waiting for the feelings to come instead of taking them as he wants.

Fuck, men who stay at home must have some slow nights. If women even do this, once they're safely married. Having to wait on it, like she's in charge even though you're the one putting your cock in her. Because you've got to be careful about each other, because you're always going to be together. You wait while your wife does what she wants with you. Like his brother—his _brother_ —is making him do, like they're married, like they're—

A strip of bark comes off in his hand. Not loud, just peeling up gently and then giving way. He does know, pretty much, what it's like to fuck his brother. He knows the smell, and these aren't quite the sounds Atli usually makes but the way he's moving, up and down, is the same general rhythm he uses when they have a woman together. And of course he knows how Torgrim likes it, he's watched him tell enough women what they're about to be doing.

Where he learned how to do that with his teeth, though, just-barely touching them to the skin—that's the mystery here. It's the kind of thing you have to knock out of a woman. Or correct a little more gently, if she's one of the willing winter girls, but either way Torgrim doesn't trust them to understand the possible consequences. Atli, though, he knows the dangers. Not going to take it too far. It's safe being inside him, letting go and waiting as he coaxes the feelings out.

The next strip of bark, detaches with a snap and crumbles to bits in his grip.

Atli reaches up and pulls Torgrim's hand off his head, where it's gotten curled into the hair somehow. He doesn't bother hiding the smirk this time.

"Oh, shut up," Torgrim tells him, as he leans aside to spit. "Saucy little brat."

"Looks like you found something to like about it after all." Atli wipes his mouth, still grinning at him, too pleased with himself by half.

Shoving a hand under Atli's tunic, Torgrim finds exactly what he was expecting. "Looks like you did too."

He goes down easy, and rolls onto the ground without complaint. "Not where I spit," is all he says, and Torgrim lets him scoot to the right before settling on top of him.

"Getting hard from giving a blowjob. That's a lot more fucked than enjoying one, if you ask me." They have to struggle to get the tunic hiked up far enough, lying on the ground like this, and Torgrim's breathing hard by the time his hand finds the bulge again.

"What else am I supposed to do, with you fondling my head like that? You and your laws against incest. I never had a woman so sweet with me in my whole life."

"What else am _I_ supposed to do?" The cloth of Atli's pants is so thick Torgrim can't do much but paw at his crotch, and the frustration building under his shoulders is about to drive him out of his fucking mind, so he puts his hand down them instead and feels the bulge jump along with the rest of his brother. "When have I ever played too rough with you, eh?"

When their lips meet it's a strange feeling. Torgrim's too worn out for it to turn him on, exactly, but it's exciting that it's turning Atli on. Everything about his brother's body is inviting him in. Even the hands digging into his back have that relaxed energy of a partner completely receptive to anything that's coming. He gets that in the winter months, sometimes, with girls ready to show a Viking man a good time. They're hoping for a baby, usually, so you've got to be careful about pulling out. No need to worry about that now, not with his brother. His warm brother, letting Torgrim feel around between his legs, wanting what he wants to give and nothing else.

Some part of Torgrim's thinking, your prick's the most honest part of you. As long as he's got a hand on this, there's no secrets between them. Nothing Atli can be thinking about that Torgrim doesn't know. No plotting behind his back to return favors, just the two of them, touching front to front. It fits nice in his hand, the way his must have fit in Atli's mouth. Fingers on the balls, shaft sliding up and down on the heel of his hand, and he can feel the soft skin of the head on the soft skin of his own wrist and inner arm. It's hard to get it in the right grip to really start pumping, but it feels almost like his arm's there to protect his brother's prick from rubbing up against the rough cloth of his pants. 

He knows what it looks like. They've bathed and changed together for three decades. He doesn't need to imagine Atli's face, either, he's seen it so many times when they take a girl together. There was just this one last layer of discomfort to push past, and he's through it now. Because most of him just wants to make his brother feel good. Even the score, like they always do.

They don't make the same sound when they come, Torgrim's pretty sure of that. Although no one out must know exactly what comes out of his own mouth, in the heat of the moment. Hard to keep your mind on the details. But Atli kind of laughs, this time, which is new for him and most definitely not something Torgrim's ever done. It's not _at_ anybody, just a happy sound as his body jerks and then relaxes. Strange, but not unpleasant.

Torgrim lets him up then, fussing with his own clothing as Atli gets his trousers back up and smooths his hair down, a touch distracted. They both hesitate over making eye contact as they rise, stretching muscles back into place, and then Atli reaches for the pelt, still sitting on the log where he left it, and stops suddenly.

"Shit," he says, turning to Torgrim. "You idiot, why'd you do that? We're out of balance again."

Torgrim blinks at the pile of fur. "Oh. Right." After all that fuss. "Well, it was more of a down payment, anyway. I'll count the whole thing as one deposit from you, how's that?"

"What do you mean, a down payment?" Atli hitches his trousers and glowers. As if there's any chance of intimidating his big brother.

"You really think your blowjob's worth a whole handful of gold? I mean, I'm not planning to trap you in servitude or anything, but..."

"Listen," Atli hisses at him. "I don't mind _trading_ again, if you feel like it. I'd just like to know how cheap a fuck you think I am."

"The customer sets the price." Torgrim pats him on the back sympathetically. "Or he does when you've only got one customer. You've really got no head for business, you know that?"

"Greedy fucking bastard." Atli swats his arm away. "I'm not wearing this thing one more day, you hear me?"

"Who asked you to keep it on in the first place? You don't have to wear a sign around your neck just because you're going to be paying me back a little while longer." Trying at first for a slap on the arse, Torgrim realizes he's not quite up for that yet. Just too weird. Instead he loops an arm over his brother's shoulders and squeezes. "Your hair's a nice color, you know that?"

It's only been fifteen minutes or so, but dusk comes up on you quick in the forest. And even with the trees starting to blot out what little light is left, Torgrim doesn't need a clear view of Atli's face to feel him slipping back into step with big brother.

"Yeah?" His shoulders relax a bit. "And how much longer is a little while?"

"I'll let you know when I've worked that out." Torgrim lets him go with a playful shove that sends him staggering back a few steps. "Anyway, you'd better stay here a few minutes while I get back to the fires."

Atli catches himself against one of the trees rounding the narrow space where they've been fooling around. He's got his back up again, eyes nearly sparking at the helpful advice. "How come I'm the one has to wait behind like a—"

"Clean your trousers out," Torgrim tells him. "You'll be bitching all day tomorrow if you let 'em get crusty now." All little brothers must get like this sometimes. They resent knowing someone else is in the right. No point holding it against him, he can hardly help himself. So, turning without another word, Torgrim leaves Atli seething among the trees and plunges back through the brush, making for where the lights of the campfires are starting to shine bright against the dark.

"We found water and he fell in," he tells them back there—it's kinder than saying he pissed all down his own leg. He had some dirt on the back of his head, too, but that shouldn't be too visible by firelight. Atli just doesn't think of these things, poor fellow. Lucky for him he has a big brother who does.

He's a quick learner, though, you've got to give him that. Never makes a bad job of something on his first try, and he only gets better on the second. So they work out about even, the two of them, in the end. Equal. Just like they should be.


End file.
